


13869 hours later, as it could have been,

by dainochild



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, along with other ships like black/n and red/green, but at the same time it's easier if like, but i dont wanna tag them, cos this shouldnt be in tags when it's, it's all on ao3 and not scattered around tumblr, not gonna make sense without reading the main fic, rip me i'm sorry, sigh i'm sorry, speaking of rip, this is a gold/silver fic rly i guess, this is all about grief and it's yikes af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 03:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7874137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dainochild/pseuds/dainochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this doesnt make sense unless you've read the fanfic Red Potter i'm sorry, it's an alt ending where a Certain Character who didn't die does die</p><p>you, browsing the tag, probably: why does this loser keep writing fics of their own fics that dont make sense without having read that fic</p><p>i do what the anons tell me, okay :')</p>
            </blockquote>





	13869 hours later, as it could have been,

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Five Or So Tumblr Anons Who Asked](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Five+Or+So+Tumblr+Anons+Who+Asked).
  * Inspired by [Red Potter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/592629) by [dainochild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dainochild/pseuds/dainochild). 



> "inspired by" this thing i wrote yeah.... well... i guess....? i just wanted the link there for ease
> 
> this is hardcore about grief btw it's a mess, i had a lot of vicarious fun though

Nineteen months (578 days) (13869 hours, actually, because every time Silver looked at a clock his mind ran through the equations until in an instant he knew) and Silver was still angry. He wasn’t even sure what at any more. Maybe that nineteen months, or 578 days, or 13,869 hours, or 832,160 minutes even, didn’t sound like enough. Not enough time to fill the space where Gold’s hand closed around his, leaning ever so slightly towards Silver at all times, like holding hands wasn’t enough obvious intimacy. It wasn’t enough time to sweep stupid pointless memories from Silver’s mind, like the scent of Gold’s hair as they clung to each other in a pool of water after walking too far, how it relaxed him even as his muscles tensed in protest and his instincts told him to reject any touch.

They weren’t really pointless memories, but they were memories that made Silver realise how pointless everything else was. Gold had been everything. He was the only person who reached out to Silver, who saw through the bullshit and kept trying. 

It was the least Silver could do to keep tracking down every last member of Team Rocket, every sympathiser no matter how small, and take them down.

Gold wouldn’t want him to. But Gold wasn’t there. That was the problem.

It was easy not to think, when he was covered in a Disillusionment Charm, watching Rockets. Noting weaknesses. Knowingly displacing all his anger on them. Usually they gave up quickly and Silver’d call Alder to come get them and take them to Azkaban. He never waited to see Alder. Alder would mention Red. Red, who was only alive because Gold was dead.

Sometimes Silver had killed them, when he had no other option. He didn’t feel guilty about that. He felt guilty about his lack of remorse. Even Giovanni had felt remorse in the end, hadn’t he, when it’d been forced out by a sociopathic empath (oh, the irony), a naive fuckwit and a dead body.

“It was supposed to be an illusion,” Black had said. “He said, it was his plan, he said –”

And it was probably supposed to be bigger to lose a brother than a boyfriend. Black had known Gold for his entire life. Silver had only care about Gold for a year. But Black was getting married, last he’d heard, and that made him angry. Angry that there could be a life for anyone after Gold’s was over. Angry that the world didn’t freeze, as cold as Silver felt every moment he let himself feel.

Sometimes, Silver woke up feeling the phantom sensation of someone playing with his hair, trying to pull it straight then letting it go.

If he hadn’t been so unfairly angry at Gold’s harmless antics, they could’ve had longer. Gold decided he loved Silver in their Third Year, and Silver had always thought that was a shallow attraction, but it wasn’t, was it, because Gold was his soulmate and he was gone and Silver had been too stupid to see it sooner.

Gold could’ve had years, if Silver hadn’t fallen for the first person to treat him with the slightest care. If he wasn’t such a stereotypical victim, always weak to any scrap of affection, so weak, so weak he couldn’t tell his heart to shut the fuck up when Gold was around. 

They could’ve had years, if Silver had been anybody else.

“You always find a way to make it your fault,” Blue said, like Giovanni hadn’t explicitly murdered Gold for touching his son.

Once, he’d found Red. Half-frozen on the mountain Silver had unknowingly lived under, and unknowingly shared a name with.

“He died for you,” Silver shouted, “he died for you and this is how you thank him?!”

Red replied, “I never asked anybody to die for me.”

“But they do it anyway,” Silver said. “I have no fucking clue why they decide it’s worth it.”

Red snorted. “Neither do I.”

Silver couldn’t even cry any more. Red looked much the same.

“He died for you too,” Red said. “Anything to kill Giovanni and keep him away from you.”

They never said his name. It always got caught in Silver’s throat and he couldn’t spit it out.

Red left. He went to the mountain to be alone with his pokémon and trauma.

Silver went anywhere and everywhere to not be alone with his trauma, but it always caught up. It always surrounded him, suffocating him, and he could see no way out. There was nobody to pull him out. And he was running out of people to fight.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Silver had said. The last thing he’d ever said to Gold. How fucking hilarious.

Completely fall apart, it turned out.

It wasn’t fair that Silver had suffered so much, been born to such a hellish life, and then had his only ray of light taken away. He’d never believed in things that mattered before Gold. Gold made him see them, after even Blue had given up on him. But Gold was gone. Now all Silver could see was an endless void. And there was nothing that would ever be enough to drag him away from it.


End file.
